


Under Me You So Quite New

by RyeBread



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftercare, Fluff, M/M, Wax Play, minor bdsm, sensual massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 17:30:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15756447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyeBread/pseuds/RyeBread
Summary: The Mighty Nein are used to brushes with death by now, used to the threat of it and the pain of it. In the moment, at least, they are ready. Afterwards, they all have their ways of handling it, of handling survival. So when Caleb stops by Fjord’s room again, they’re used to that, too.





	Under Me You So Quite New

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from E. E. Cummings’ delightfully erotic and probably overused poem:
> 
> “i like my body when it is with your  
> body. It is so quite new a thing.  
> Muscles better and nerves more.  
> i like your body. i like what it does,  
> i like its hows. i like to feel the spine  
> of your body and its bones, and the trembling  
> -firm-smooth ness and which i will  
> again and again and again  
> kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,  
> i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz  
> of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes  
> over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,
> 
> and possibly i like the thrill
> 
> of under me you so quite new.“

Fjord can feel Caleb perched on his thighs, just below buttocks with his knees braced on either side of Fjord’s hips while he lays belly down on the bed. It’s been a quiet night, but a long week and when Caleb had come to his door with a question, Fjord hadn’t needed to do anything more than nod. 

Fjord nestles his face down onto the pillow, closing his eyes and rubbing cheek against the downy surface. They’d all been hesitant about The Pillow Trove until Jester had won out, convincing them the added comfort and security was well worth the cost. In times like these, when they all returned from missions barely alive, but breathing, they could all silently agree that she was right. It’s a selfish comfort, the privilege of excess, but it’s a comfort they’re willing to take.

“I am heating the candle,” Caleb mutters from above him. Fjord recognizes the incantation and the minute shifts in Caleb’s body against his. He can see in his mind’s eye the soft orange flame appearing in Caleb’s hand, the gentle flicker of it as he holds it beneath the glass jar of oily wax. The room fills quickly with the smell of the candle’s melting; a subtle almond wafting beneath the heady, mineral aroma. It smells warm, to Fjord’s limited senses. Caleb doesn’t have a free hand, but Fjord feels the gentle squeeze of his thighs against his hips in reassurance. 

Fjord rolls his shoulders gently, shifts a bit beneath Caleb’s weight to find a slightly more comfortable position. Caleb laughs, a low chuckle, and shifts himself so that less of his weight bears down on Fjord’s legs. “You’re small, but not that small,” Fjord whispers, stretching his arms out in front of himself, flexing his back and shoulders to showcase the yield of laborious years on board a ship, and also the consequence of a single night’s betrayal.

Caleb shifts again, this time his hand coming down to touch the back of Fjord’s neck, at the end of the stubble of shorn hair. He traces a path down between Fjord’s shoulder blades, and Fjord can picture it; Caleb’s two fingers together following the crease in his back, pale pink against the rough green. The splotchy, geometric spread of burns on Caleb’s hands and arms a contrast to the sharp, irregular lumps from force and shrapnel. Fjord considers requisitioning a set of mirrors, just to see it first hand.

Caleb let’s out a slow breath, his hand retreats from Fjord’s back. Fjord knows this part. He listens for the too-quick inhale that marks Caleb testing the heat of the wax on his own skin, the parts that are still at least somewhat sensitive to heat at the inner elbow or the small patch at his wrist. “We’ve done this before with their candles,” Fjord prompts. 

“Some melt hotter than others,” Caleb explains, voice gone stoic as he tests the wax a few more times. “I am going to begin.”

Fjord doesn’t nod, doesn’t say anything or move, just relaxes his body against the sheets and waits. The first drop hits the center of his back, a liquid splatter that quickly hardens against his cool skin without so much as a light burn. The next fall in deliberate drops up his spine, Caleb bringing the jar closer to his skin with each, precise dot. The first three are similar to the first splash, warm and unassuming. The next has more of a bite, a flash of heat, a taste of flame. The next two are hotter still and Fjord moans against it, flexing his hands against the bedspread. Caleb follows up higher, toward the thinner skin of Fjord’s neck, and Fjord digs his fingers in deeper. He startles when his claws stab through and into the mattress.

“Shh,” Caleb says, running a soothing hand along Fjord’s flank. “An easy fix.”

He lets himself relax again, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. A thin line of heat spreads along his shoulders, tracing a molten path down his upper arm. It pauses then resumes in the opposite direction, criss-crossing along arm then shoulder then other arm. The heat at one end fades only to resume a moment later as Caleb glides back over with the jar held close. Fjord loses himself in the feeling of sharp burns, warm lines, and the grounding weight of Caleb above him. The pattern of wax cracks and flexes with each arch and stretch that Caleb elicits with precise application of the oily heat. 

Finally, when the glass runs empty, Caleb sets the still-hot glass against the small of Fjord’s back. The heat leaches into Fjord’s skin, a perfectly round stamp like Caleb’s seal on his flesh. Fjord sighs into his arm, his back a mess of hardening wax. “Fjord?” Caleb asks, both hands tracing the lines he’s made.

“Mm?” Fjord responds, his head still swimming, lost in the gentle seas where Caleb’s ministrations leave him. The gentle motion of the waves in his mind make thinking hard, but not impossible. The sea is warm and inviting, where he can float on the buoyant surface, not lost but gone - for a while. 

“Come back to me,” Caleb says. The cooled glass moves from Fjord’s tailbone and Caleb lays down over Fjord’s back, laying his chest down against him. His mouth is at Fjord’s ear now. “Fjord. Open your eyes.”

He obeys, languid and pliable, and he takes in the green-blue of his bicep speckled with flaking white. Caleb’s lips brush the shell of his ear as he rolls to Fjord’s side and he can see Caleb’s smile and the blue of his eyes. “Thanks,” Fjord says, and reaches out to pat Caleb’s face, dragging his claws through the wiry beard, scratching gently at the skin beneath.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Caleb says, rummaging through a pocket in his soft pants. He retrieved a short, crescent shaped case. The light in the room glimmers against the edge of the short razor Caleb pulls from it. “We should get that mess off of you.”

Fjord hums, but closes his hand around Caleb’s, light pressure encouraging him to surrender the blade. He sets it on the standing table beside the bed and pulls Caleb against his chest. The smaller man says something against his skin, muffled and unintelligible. Fjord pats his hair, “In a bit, alright?”

Caleb turns his head, beard tugging and prickly on the patch of curly hair between Fjord’s thick bosom. “It is going to get harder to remove,” he complains, but he makes no other move to free himself. 

Fjord smirks, knowing Caleb can’t see it, and rubs his wide hands down Caleb’s back. He keeps the pressure light, but firm, almost petting. He can feel the striated muscle bunches against the prominent bones of Caleb’s ribs and shoulders, more relaxed than usual, but never really relaxed. He works absently on the knots, fingers pushing in on them when he can trap them against the blades of Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb twists on occasion, when the pressure is too sharp, but shrugs off Fjord’s muttered apologies, settling for kneading his fingers into Fjord’s chest whenever a knot comes loose. Gradually, Caleb melts against him and Fjord finds himself nodding off and into sleep. In the back of his head he can hear future Caleb’s complaints about the wax in the sheets and how much more difficult it is to clean it all off when it’s broken into powder, but that’s a issue for future Fjord. Current Fjord is still coming down from the high of the wax and has a pliable Caleb drowsing in his arms. Future Fjord can deal with future Caleb, this Caleb belongs entirely to him.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote all of this in one go while thinking about Caleb and Fjord and their scars. I thought about how Caleb, with all his self-hatred and remorse, would need some kind of release. Fjord needing some way to escape the storms in his head. 
> 
> Mostly I thought about Caleb saying, “Part of me likes the way fire feels” and I had to find a way to make it kinky but also soft.


End file.
